The earliest date that I find flip named in New England is 1690. From that year till the middle of this century there never was a day, never a minute of the day, and scarce of the night, that some old Yankee flip drinker was not plunging in a loggerhead, or smacking his lips over a mug of creaming flip.
In the New England Almanac for 1704 we read under December:—
“The days are short, the weather’s cold,
By tavern fires tales are told.
Some ask for dram when first come in,
Others with flip and bounce begin.”
American flip was made in a great pewter mug or earthen pitcher filled two-thirds full of strong beer; sweetened with sugar, molasses, or dried pumpkin, according to individual taste or capabilities; and flavored with “a dash”—about a gill—of New England rum. Into this mixture was thrust and stirred a red-hot loggerhead, made of iron and shaped like a poker, and the seething iron made the liquor foam and bubble and mantle high, and gave it the burnt, bitter taste so dearly loved. A famous tavern host of Canton, Massachusetts, had a special fancy in flip. He mixed together a pint of cream, four eggs, and four pounds of sugar, and kept this on hand. When a mug of flip was called for, he filled a quart mug two-thirds full of bitter beer, added four great spoonfuls of his creamy compound, a gill of rum, and thrust in the loggerhead. If a fresh egg were beaten into the mixture, the froth poured over the top of the mug, and the drink was called “bellows-top.”
Happy Farmer Pitcher.
Let me not fail to speak of the splendid glasses in which flip was often served—I mean the great glass tumblers without handles which, under the name of flip glasses, still are found in New England homes. They are vast drinking-vessels, sometimes holding three or four quarts apiece, and speak to us distinctly of the unlimited bibulous capacities of our ancestors. They are eagerly sought for by glass and china collectors, and are among the prettiest and most interesting of old-time relics.
Sign-board of Hancock Tavern.
English flip is not so simple nor so original nor so good a drink as American flip. It might be anything but flip, since it is compounded in a saucepan, and knows naught of the distinctive branding of flip, the seething loggerhead. If it contained no spirits, it was called “egg-hot.”